


He Wasn't Found

by neglectedrainbow



Category: Dear Evan Hansen
Genre: !!!, Anxiety, Backstory, Broadway, Depression, Divorce, Emotional, Gen, Headcanon, I'M JUST, Musicals, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, a sad broadway musical, but there's some darkness there so beware, dear evan hansen - Freeform, evan's father, evan's life story from age seven onwards, everybody needs to see a psychiatrist, i mean honestly though, this musical, up until the start of the play-senior year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9250076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neglectedrainbow/pseuds/neglectedrainbow
Summary: Evan was seven years old when his father left, when Dad got on that truck and drove away, when the house was a little more quiet. Evan was seventeen years old when he let go, when the tree's branches were released from his fingertips, when he finally fell to the ground.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is my first DEH fic (and it seems to be the first DEH fic on this entire website, what). this musical is stunning and amazing and makes me weep with my entire being. it's so good, and you must so listen to it right away, just... no words. 
> 
> so, here is my attempt at portraying my own version of evan's backstory. warning: suicide attempt, poor self image, depressive episodes, and negative thoughts

Evan was seven years old when his father left, when Dad got on that truck and drove away, when the house was a little more quiet. A lot more quiet, really. For a while, his Mom didn’t say anything, just waited, the two of them waited together, waited for a better future that didn’t wait for them. 

Evan was eight when he went to Dad’s wedding--second wedding--and he remembers standing there and wondering how easy it seemed to be for Dad to get over Mom, how he seemed to already have moved on by the time he walked out the front door for the last time. Less than a year later and he already had a new wife, a new life. Evan and his Mom were cast aside like toy trinkets, made of dulled wood when Dad wanted something new, shiny, and plastic.

The wedding was full of white lights and pastel flowers, and Evan stared at it all and tried to remember the last time he’d ever seen anything like this. Then, he realized that he’d never seen anything like this. It all looked so luxurious and so expensive, and Evan looked at the glittering crystal glasses lining the tables. 

He replayed his father’s yells and screams after Evan broke one of their ceramic plates in first grade. He was so angry then, towering above, and his voice was so loud. But then Evan looked around at rows and rows of sparkling glasses and bowls and, for some reason, he didn’t think Dad would yell like that if his new wife broke one of these plates. 

His new wife was beautiful, with deep brown eyes and waves of curly hair, and she was at least ten years younger than Mom. Evan watched her smile and kiss his father, and he was suddenly very glad that Mom wasn’t invited to this. She’d already been hurting so much.

He didn’t want to be angry with Dad, he truly didn’t. Evan hated being angry, despised anger’s all-consuming energy. He was furious with himself enough that he didn’t have any anger left to give to others. And yet, somehow, within those shining glasses and intricate flowers, Evan found the energy to be angry again.

Evan stopped seeing his father after that. Dad said that he’d come to visit every month, but then “every month” turned into “every year,” and soon enough Dad was living in an entirely different state. Him and his wife had two children and were considering a third. Perfect, normal children with bright eyes and glittering teeth, children who didn’t flinch or cry or fidget so much, children much better than Evan. With these sparkling new additions, Evan started to understand why Dad left. Dad left because of him, Evan knew this and accepted this, because of his flinching and crying and fidgeting. He was envious of his father; he wished he could run away from himself like that.

He tried to run away, from himself, the summer between junior and senior year. He did, and he failed, and that failure trapped him all the more. But that’s rushing ahead. Before then, Evan tried to change, he truly did. In middle school, he forced himself to speak at least once a day, and it was all working until he wasn’t paying attention in math class one day, and he couldn’t figure out the answer to one of the questions, and Mr. Green asked him to finish the problem on the board, and he just couldn’t because he didn’t know the answer and why wasn’t anyone helping him? 

And then Philip McArthur raised his hand and gave the correct answer, and Evan hunched and thanked Philip, but Philip just started mocking Evan’s stutter, which just made Evan stutter more, and Philip kept going and going and no one stopped him, and Evan cried so much that he had to be taken to the nurse and made to breathe into a paper bag, and then everyone knew how much of a freak he was. 

And Rachel Kohn invited Evan to her bat mitzvah and Mom was so excited that they went out and bought new clothing, which never happens because it’s all so superficial and expensive and the new fabric irritates Evan’s skin and just makes him want to scratch, scratch, scratch. But they did, and he bought a nice navy suit, and Mom thought it was gorgeous, and for once, Evan didn’t mind how his face was shaped. 

But when he went to the celebration, there were only two other boys and both of them were wearing black suits, not navy, and Evan didn’t know what to do, but he tried not to think about it too much, which never works. He gave Rachel her gift and hoped that it wasn’t too small or too pathetic or otherwise too much like Evan, because no one would want that.

Rachel’s party had a photo booth, and she asked Evan to go in it with her, to take some pictures, and he said yes, of course, because what else was there to say. And Rachel was smiling and laughing and touching Evan, and it wasn’t too bad, it was okay, but then, on the final picture, Rachel leaned over and pressed her lips into Evan’s.

Evan froze and flung himself onto the opposite edge of the photo booth, trying wildly to calm his heart rate. Rachel reached for him and tried to lean in again, and that was too much, it was just too much, the lights and the flashing camera lense and Rachel smelled like cherries and mint and her lips were soft but Evan was wearing navy, he was so wrong, Rachel couldn't possibly truly want him. So he bolted out of the photobooth. And everyone else was standing around and they all saw Evan’s panicked step, they were all looking at him, and he just ran. He ran out of the room and down the stairs and out of the building, panting. It must have all been a joke. Rachel couldn’t have actually liked him, she was making fun of him, and everyone else was in on it, he knew it. And, after that, Rachel didn’t speak to him and Evan was never invited to another bat mitzvah. 

That was all when he was thirteen, his first kiss, his last bat mitzvah. People started speaking to him less and less, and Mom started working more and more, and Evan suddenly felt more lonely than ever. He sat alone in his room and replayed the events of the day over and over and over, trying to pinpoint exactly where he went wrong. He always went wrong somewhere. 

Soon enough summer came, and middle school was over. Everyone else was posting about their beautiful summer vacations, but they didn’t have money like that and Mom couldn’t miss so much work. So, he watched and wondered what the hot sand of Mykonos felt like. He looked out of his window onto this street and wished everything was different. 

The three months of summer began to feel so overwhelming, so overpowering, and Evan started to feel so claustrophobic that he couldn’t breathe anymore. Mom found him on the living room floor, trying and failing not to hyperventilate. But Mom couldn’t stop Evan’s quickening breaths, because she hated him, too, she was going to leave, just like Dad, she didn’t want him to breathe again. All these thoughts ran around Evan’s head, slamming into each other and exploding, only to be replaced with new, darker thoughts. And then he passed out.

Mom took him to the hospital, because she didn’t know what else to do, and the nurses were able to get him breathing again, at a normal rate. They referred Evan to a psychiatrist, who gave Evan these tiny white pills to swallow every night, but the pills just made Evan get headaches and feel nauseous, so they gave him a different pill, a little green and white capsule. Evan took this twice a day and some of his thoughts quieted down. Though, every time he took them, a little voice in his head screamed at him for needing fixing, for being so broken, for being so disgusting and hateful that even his own mother thought he needed to be changed. 

Then high school started. He considered joining a club or sport, or something, just so high school was a little different. He didn’t. He couldn’t. It seemed like the more he talked, the more he tried, the worse his life became. So he stopped talking or trying at all.

There was a boy, Charlie, that started talking to Evan during study hall, and eventually Evan had enough courage to talk back. And Charlie was wonderful and true, but-but Evan was so scared that he ruined it all. He was too frightened, and Charlie was too nice, and Evan doesn’t want to even think about how it all ended. 

After Charlie stopped talking to him, Mom picked up another job. She was only home early enough to see Evan three times a week, then. It felt, sometimes, like he didn’t even have a parent. Mom did introduce him to Jared, the son of the neighbor of Mom’s work collegue, or something convoluted like that. He met Jared for the first time, then. Jared was fun, sometimes, and he could make Evan laugh. He went over to Jared’s house, occasionally, and they just sat together and watched a film while Jared narrated wittily overtop the dialogue. Evan chuckled and started to relax. Jared didn’t seem to mind Evan too much, either. They had a good thing going. 

Evan was happy, during ninth grade, for once. He had a friend. He lost a friend, too, and seeing Charlie in the hallway made his heart squeeze and freeze, but he made it through that, he was strong enough. Summer came, and Evan felt good. He would finally have places to be and people to see, and Mom was smiling at him more.

Then, Jared went to summer camp--Evan had wanted to come with him, but they didn’t have enough money, he could remember the sadness and regret filling Mom's eyes more and more until Evan begged her not to worry about it, lied that he didn't even really want to go in the first place--and came back with stories of the wilderness, white water rafting, and roasting marshmallows around a fire. Evan laughed and asked questions all along while Jared told story after story. He mentioned some of the other kids at the camp, then he got stoney and said, “Yeah, you know who else was there, Evan? This kid named Charlie, I didn’t know that you knew him, but apparently-”

And Evan raced to defend himself, to explain that whatever Charlie said was a lie and in the past and-and suddenly Jared started looking at him a bit differently. Jared stopped asking Evan to come over as much, they stopped texting so often or watching movies together at all. Evan cried. Mom sent him to another therapist, as just more proof of how broken he was. 

Tenth grade started, and Evan tried to align his schedule with Jared’s, just so that he had someone--anyone--to talk to, but Jared called him a freak and told him to stop trying so hard, right in the middle of the hallway, and everyone must’ve seen, everyone must’ve heard, and Evan ran, ran until cold air struck him in the face. 

There were footsteps behind him, and suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, a small hand. He whipped around and stumbled backward. It was a girl, a brown haired, brown eyed girl, and she reached out again and asked if he was okay. Evan wasn’t okay, but he lied and said that he was fine. The girl introduced herself as Zoe Murphy, and Evan froze. He remembered this girl, from elementary school. She went to another middle school, but now she was back and Evan couldn’t breathe. Evan never gave her his name. 

She asked if he was okay again, and he lied again. Soon enough, she went back inside and back to class. Evan walked home. He looked her up on Instagram, and he was bombarded with images of stunning vacation homes, lavish foreign meals, smiling family photos, beautiful group pictures with her and what seemed to be an unending supply of friends. He scrolled further and further, until the end, and he realized what a perfect life looked like.

She was the first person all year, other than his therapist, to ask Evan if he was okay, to seem to actually care, and he couldn’t forget her.

Sophomore year was slow, there were good times and there were bad times, and Evan tried to get out there, tried to talk, but failed, failed again. And Jared started referring to the people at camp as his “real friends.” And Mom started coming home early only two days a week. And Dad invited Evan to visit him in Colorado, but Evan couldn’t-he tried but he couldn’t fly on a plane, it was too overwhelming, there were too many people, patting him down and yelling at him to keep walking, and airport security flagged him for acting suspicious and took him away and Mom had to come and pick him up, and he had to tell Dad that he couldn’t come, but he couldn’t lie about why, so then Dad had a fresh reminder of just how broken he was. 

It got worse and worse and worse. Life rushed by him, flying by at hundreds of miles and hour, but Evan couldn’t even see two inches in front of him. His therapist kept asking questions that he didn’t have the answer to, and Mom started getting that worried look in her eye, asking him to call her every evening--just to “make sure.” And everything falling apart and Evan couldn’t remember his name and time rushed by, leaving him stranded, and no one ever talked to him, not if they didn’t have to, and suddenly junior year was over, too, and he hadn’t done anything, he was still a failure, but Mom told him that she’d gotten enough cash for him to go and study at the national forest nearby and he went and learned about the trees and the people there were nice and he loved them all so much. 

But he knew, he knew that he was going to have to go back home, soon, he was going to go back to a place without many trees at all. His house didn’t have any trees, his school didn’t have any trees, and the other Junior Park Rangers talked to him, they didn’t think he was weird, they loved the trees, too. But Evan was going to have to go back and be so alone again, be so hated again, and he never wanted to go back, he wanted to stay among the trees for ever.

So he climbed up, up, up, to see all the trees, to be with them, and wished that he could never go home. And a thought crossed his mind, suddenly, and he started crying. Everyone would be so much better without him, Mom would be happier, she wouldn’t have to work as much, and Dad wouldn’t have to pretend to care anymore, and if they didn’t have to see him again, then he would never have to go back to that awful life, keep telling those awful lies- And the thoughts kept coming and coming and coming and coming and then he let go.

Everything went to black.

He woke up after a few minutes, though, with a throbbing wrist and a pounding head, but alive. He laid there. He waited, waited for something impossible.

But no one came.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you all enjoyed! and please comment or leave kudos (comments give me life though) and find me on tumblr at neglectedrainbow.tumblr.com for any requests or questions!


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